Danilo Petrucci completed a historic treble in Cremona by dominating his way to World Superbikes Race 2 victory.
The 33-year-old shared the podium with Alvaro Bautista and Nicolo Bulega to round off a Ducati 1-2-3.
Petrucci held onto the lead from pole position into the Turn 1, but Kawasaki’s Alex Lowes fell down from second to fourth spot.
Bulega and Andrea Iannone exchanged positions over the crest at the end of Lap 1 to take second, with Bulega playing catchup to Petrucci out front.
Axel Bassani crashed out of proceedings early on despite an impressive first race of the weekend, which saw him finish fifth.
Bautista was able to claim one place from his starting position of sixth as the Aruba.it Ducati rider was on a mission to establish a second podium place finish of the weekend.
Out front, Petrucci and Bulega formulated a clear lead over the rest of the field. Still, Ducati’s dominance saw four riders in the top five scoring positions, with Kawasaki’s Lowes the exception in the opening laps.
At the tricky Turn 10 BMW’s Michael van der Mark had a nasty wobble aboard his Bavarian machine and recovered well only to lose one place to Tito Rabat, before snatching 10th spot off him once more only a few laps later.
Iannone ran wide on Lap 6, allowing Bautista to pounce on the fellow Ducati rider and Lowes, which placed him up to third.
Petrucci’s rapid pace at the halfway point of the race allowed him to extend his advantage over Bulega to 1.9s, with the Italian looking to complete the treble.
Lowes forced his way through on Iannone on Lap 9 to take fourth spot, but the Italian rider appeared off the pace and looked like his injuries were playing their part.
Garrett Gerloff’s purple patch continued as he formulated a strong performance to place himself in sixth in the middle stages, but it took until Lap 11 to overtake the fast flowing Ducati rider of Iannone.
Later that same lap, Honda rider Iker Lecuona placed himself up the inside of Iannone and produced a perfected block pass to cement himself sixth spot.
The top three, Ducati riders Petrucci, Bulega, and Bautista, were separated by just over 3s, with each rider formulating a consistent pace.
Gerloff caught up to the back of Lowes’ Kawasaki with the American trying to formulate an opportunistic move aboard his BMW bike, but Lowes’ corner entry gave him the edge.
Gerloff pounced to overtake Lowes in the dying embers of the race to snatch fourth from Lowes’ grasp.
Bautista once again showed how his talent in the closing stages to formulate a comeback on his team-mate Bulega, with the move arriving in the final laps to go.
Petrucci rounded off his weekend with a dominant race-two win, which puts him in company with World Superbike greats Bautista, Razgatlıoğlu and Jonathan Rea in completing the treble.
Bautista cemented a strong second place considering his injury battles, with Bulega’s third place placing him 13 points adrift of the absent Toprak Razgatlıoğlu heading into Aragon.
Gerloff’s fourth-place finish saw the American finish as the lead BMW rider, ahead of Kawasaki and Honda riders Lowes and Lecuona.
Van der Mark recovered to take seventh place for BMW despite his near-crash, with Xavi Vierge and Andrea Locatelli finishing eighth and ninth.
Kawasaki Puccetti Racing rider Rabat rounded off the top ten, with Sam Lowes enduring a quiet race to finish 11th for the Marc VDS Ducati team.
Redding finished a distant 12th compared to his teammate’s strong showing, with Michael Ruben Rinaldi fending off Bradley Ray to seal the 13th spot.
Markus Reiterberger finished in the final point-scoring position in a damage limitation weekend for BMW, with the German team choosing to fledge a new engine for the rest of the season for when Razgatlıoğlu comes back.
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